Hojo's Collapse
by Shagi Tigori
Summary: What if there was once a good man in Hojo? What caused him to become the monster known today? A take on the character of Professor Hojo.


AN: This idea came out of a discussion about the Daddy issues of FF7 and the random thought that maybe Hojo was once a decent guy but no one ever saw that side. There are dark themes in this story. I'm not sure if I'm going to add onto it or not. CameoAmalthea helped inspire this drabble. I was listening to the song Confrontation from Jekyll and Hyde as I wrote it.

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It was dark, the sound of rain pounding against the small window in the dimly lit office drowning out any whimpers. A small lamp on the cluttered desk of the professor was the only source of light, its bulb flickering at the end of its life. The thin hands of a young man ghosted over the papers, shaking and pallor. There was urgency to their motions, searching desperately for the answer to his plight. All the good he had done, he could feel slipping away. His pride had devoured his soul. There was only one thing left for him to do to save his legacy of good. He had to find the answers, the cure to his insanity. He had allowed himself to fall to the temptation of grandeur and the devil's sweet lies. She had sung sweetly to him, entrancing him with promises of great knowledge to help better the world. All he had to do was give her access to his mind, inject himself with her cells to strengthen his feeble mind and give him the mysteries of the universe.

How could he have known she was not the Cetra he had come to believe, but a monster? It was never his intention to do harm. He was trying to save the planet. Hands grasp at his forehead, nails digging into the skin, trying to rid him of the painful laughing searing his mind. She had truly found a perfect pawn for her return. Professor Hojo had an insatiable thirst for knowledge when he had found the first piece of her legacy. He had been such a pure individual that she gained great pleasure as she twisted him from the light, molding him into her first human puppet. He had fallen for her sweet lies so easily it was almost unfulfilling for her. Only he began to fight her, resisting her whispers for human testing. She had controlled his body once before he realized what a tragic mistake he had truly made. He sat at his desk, questioning his morality as he tried to find a way to rid himself of her evil. "Am I a good man? Have I gone mad? How could I have let this creature twist me so…" he constantly asked himself these questions, only to be answered with a dark chuckle in the back of his own mind. He knew there had to be a way to escape her control, to silence her demands. He needed to end himself of this nightmare he had created. He felt himself slipping farther from reality with every passing moment.

The laughing was growing louder in his mind as he fumbled with calculations and files. He had to hurry; he could feel her growing stronger. His time was limited and there was nothing he could figure out to fix it. He grasped at the last of his notes filled with good intentions, locking the folder away from her reach, or any other's that could destroy the hard work he had spent his life doing. His hands shook violently as he scribbled a pathetic note, begging for forgiveness for what he had done to himself, and what he was sure he would do if he were to fail. He knew he needed to stop her in the only way he could be sure she would never return. Sickly fingers trembled as they opened the top drawer to his cherry desk, moving with determination even in such weakness for the sweet cure he had resting on more documents. He lifted the revolver from the drawer, not bothering to close it. He wasn't concerned about the tidiness of his desk, only the destruction of the demon within his mind. He raised his hand so the barrel of the revolver pressed to his temple. He took one last look at the picture of the woman he truly adored as a colleague and wanted to love. He would never have the chance to show her he was not just a greasy scientist lost in thought after tonight. This was to be his tragic ending.

His fingers seemed to finally steady as he tightened his grip around the trigger. His biggest regret would be the taking of his own life and the loss of all the good he had done to the world. It was sudden, the laughter going silent as he felt his finger pull the trigger ever closer to ignition. The light on the desk suddenly glowed brighter than it ever had before making a loud popping sound, plunging the poor man into darkness. He felt as though he had been thrown into a icy river, his mind on fire as darkness devoured him, not even the light of the night or glow of any other office penetrated the blackness. There was nothing around him. He grew highly confused, absently questioning if this was truly what limbo felt like. He wondered if the bullet had killed him on impact or if this was just how death took him. He was torn from his reveries at the sound of laughter. His own laughter filled his ears, but that was impossible. He had done the calculations. He pulled the trigger to the revolver. He should be dead and have taken her with him. He had rid the planet of her evil inside him. He was sure of it. His own voice spoke back to him, taunting him. He was trapped in the darkness of his own mind. There was no escape for him any more. He was lost and there was nothing he could do to stop her now.

Professor Hojo was grinning like a maniac when the young woman from the cleaning staff cautiously entered his office, turning on a different light to brighten the room. She had let out a gasp at the sight of him sitting at his desk with a terrible grin, revolver in one hand and eyes like a demon. She quickly slipped out of the office to avoid disturbing him. There was a drastic change to his persona, and it seemed none were the wiser that he had ever been a good person. He was twisted in the minds of the personnel who worked with him and any who knew of the horrors he was to commit would curse the name of Hojo. It was to his horror as he watched the presence he had so willingly accepted corrupt everything he ever loved. He had tried to cry out and warn the woman of his desires of the evils she was entertaining. He was forced to watch as his own form was used to destroy her very soul, making love to her and impregnating her. Torture like none other came at the corruption of his own blood kin. Jenova had taken all he was and twisted it to her own purposes and he had lost the chance to prevent it all. His name would be synonymous with horrors and the pure torture that his form had caused to many individuals. He watched as his own son became a wonderful man and then spiraled down to madness. He saw the corruption he had fought destroy his son and there was nothing he could ever do about it.


End file.
